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“The Social Reckoning” is the journalism thriller’s last stand
Though writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” fancies itself a journalism thriller, the film offers only a handful of real thrills. Fans of the subgenre, known and loved for its depiction of journalism’s slow yet effective behind-the-scenes processes, might see…
SNL” declares “public executions are back
“Saturday Night Live” took aim at President Donald Trump‘s Nobel Peace Prize complaints and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s plans for a televised military execution, turning two of the administration’s latest controversies into punchlines. Colin Jost opened Saturday’s show portraying Hegseth…
The AI drive-thru wars aren’t really about your order
A few years ago, an experimental McDonald’s drive-thru system became convinced that two customers needed an almost ceremonial quantity of chicken McNuggets. As a video of the exchange showed, the number kept climbing: 240, 250, 260. The customers shouted for…
TV never left “The Twilight Zone”
“Serling” author Alan Sepinwall didn’t know it, but he was about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind and, in his telling, unexpected connections. The scene was Los Angeles, where the veteran…
Josh Hartnett turned heartthrob fame into a career of risks
Of all the tawdry delights in “Verity” — Michael Showalter’s adaptation of bestselling author Colleen Hoover’s massively popular psychological thriller — the best and most unexpected is how well the film hides its secrets. Now, don’t get me wrong: The…
Trump says U.S. is “looking strongly” at alleged Russian plague case
American health officials are on high alert following reports of a death in Russia that may be linked to pneumonic plague. The cause of death for the individual has yet to be officially confirmed by lab testing, but Daria Shipilova,…
Leave the Greenland sharks alone
A version of this essay first appeared in Crash Course, Salon’s free morning newsletter. Sign up for early access to articles like this, plus more of Salon’s bold journalism on how policies, movements and culture wars affect real people. The 1975 film…
We’re reporters, not teachers. We were able to start private schools anyway
We have no business running a private school. We’re reporters, not teachers. That doesn’t matter. Inexperience has hardly been a barrier for those who want to start their own schools, as we have reported this year. And it didn’t stop…
Manchester City’s cheating scandal isn’t really about soccer
The biggest scandal in the modern history of professional sports broke wide open across the Atlantic this past week. How much that reflects larger social, cultural and economic pathologies and whether it affects regular people’s lives in any meaningful way…
We’ve tracked $80M of spending on almost 170 AI‑generated political ads this year – it’s weird
The 2026 U.S. midterm campaigns are the first in which AI-generated political ads are regularly appearing on people’s televisions and social media feeds. We are researchers who have been studying political advertising through the Wesleyan Media Project since 2010. This…